Continuing with the Lehman families and their DNA testing, there is another group consisting of two individuals with identically the same markers. Both have ancestors in Tennessee. One of them has a known ancestor prior to Tennessee in Pennsylvania. There is a third individual who lives in Saarbruecken, Germany. This individual differs by only one score from the two individuals above. His family has been throughly documented to an Ulrich Lehman in Canton Bern, Switzerland. These individuals differ from the first two families (in Note 2244) by about six changes. Statistically this would indicate a common ancestor from the time of Moses and the Pharaohs of Egypt. Thus, this group is essentially independent of the other families.
Still another family group is most closely related to the previous, but the common ancestor seems to have lived about the Ninth Century. Again, a Swiss origin is indicated. One individual, close enough to the previous to be considered in the same group has a tradition of a Scottish ancestor whose descendants moved to France before moving to the Americas.
Another family group was indicated by two individuals, one of whom lives in Australia and one of whom lives in Pennsylvania. The Australian has a tradition that his family had been French Huguenot watchmakers who emigrated to England. Apparently, there was further emigration to the colonies by a common ancestor or by a brother.
Several individuals in the test had enough changes in their markers that they are considered independent of the other branches for at least the last ten centuries. Still, they are close enough so that they can be considered to have come by their surname honestly as opposed, for example, by adoption.
Mordecai Lamons in North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century is said to have come from Scotland. Joseph Lemon of New Jersey descendants had enough changes while enough similarity to the Swiss families indicates they had a Swiss origin but not in the last few centuries.
Hans Lehman came to the colonies via Philadelphia in 1727 and his name was among the first to be recorded. Hence, many inexperienced researchers have thought that they descended from him. He was a German-speaking Mennonite. A proven line of his shows nothing in common with the other families.
In brief, many of the Lehman families are related but the common ancestor was sometimes from the Middle Ages or even earlier. Some people with the same or similar name show no blood relationship in common with the others. It appears that members of the larger family have moved around a great deal with some of them living for a while in several lands other than Switzerland and America.
[There may not be a Note tomorrow.]
(02 Feb 06)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.